Song Bird
by sarahbellesays
Summary: The Doctor finds a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls.   AU, sort of.
1. Chapter 1

**Title,** Song Bird  
><strong>Author,<strong> sarahbellesays  
><strong>Summary,<strong> The Doctor discovers a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls. (AU, sort of.)  
><strong>Author's Note,<strong> Well, hi there! My name is Sarahbelle! I used to write a lot of fan fiction, but then real life got in the way. And I decided I really missed fan fiction! My newest and greatest obsession is Doctor Who, so I hope you'll enjoy this story. It's heavily inspired by the book Vamped: A Novel, but also incredibly distinct and also nothing to do with vampires.  
><strong>Disclaimer,<strong> I do not own Doctor Who.

* * *

><p>The sound of the wailing siren put her teeth on edge. The underground of the facility was dark but for the red lights that flashed and made her vision turn bloody and sour. She could barely breath- something had struck her in her side and it was exhausting to move. Her arms wound around the small budle that she pressed so carefully to her breast. All was quiet, but for those sirens. The sound of persuit had ceased the more corners she turned, weaving and ducking and trailing through the underground that she had grown so used to in the past few years. There was nothing much left for her, now. She supposed it was nearly her time.<p>

The bundle in her arms twitched and her teeth grit into a tight, thin line. Despite the pain that was slowly spreading from her side into her abdomine, she knew that she couldn't stop just yet. Reaching out one hand, she trailed the wall until she found a door. It stuck when she tried the handle; she had to throw her shoulder into it several times before the wood splintered and she was able to duck inside. How strange, she thought idly with a sneer and a chuckle, that out of all the materials for this door to be made of, it would be made of wood! Kicking the door closed, she settled with her back against the furthest wall.

The room was small and dark. Beneath the gap in the door she could see the red warning lights and she could hear the sirens, barely muffled by the room. Sniffing, she pulled the bundle away from her body and peered down. A soft face looked back up at her: it was a human face, mostly. Big brown eyes peered up, doe-like and innocent, from a round, flat face. She did not have the snout of her people, nor the hard set, rock-like brow. Her hair, though thin, fell around her face in black hanks. She had been spared- it was her human-esque features that would save her. If it only weren't for that skin!

"I'll have to go away, soon," she hummed thoughtfully to the child. "Mama will have to go away soon."

"No," her daughter protested in a whine. A slow chuckle fell from the mothers lips, though it was quickly covered by a groan of pain. She was dying. Her hand pressed to her side and she pulled it away with a palm covered in blood.

"I should never have brought you here," the mother admitted in a rush, touching her daughter's face and smearing her cheeks with blood in the process. "It was foolish. Death would have been better than the life you'll have, here."

Her daughter began to cry. It set the mother's heart racing and she hushed her gently, pulling her against her chest and rocking her, slowly. "There, there!" She cooed, though there was nothing she could do or say to make this right, now. The war that ravaged their planet had been devastating, to say the least. It had been a miracle that she had been able to get out with the child in the first place. A useless woman she had been, unable to polite the escape pod; crashing onto this planet had been, at first, a blessing. Three years of hiding and ducking and running and trying to keep out of the human eye had negated that thought rather quickly.

"I'm going to go find you some sweets," the mother whispered, drawing back from the child. "Can you sit here and be still, little one?"

Her daughter peered up at her with all the trust the young tend to put in their mothers. That trust was misplaced. Swallowing down air, she set her daughter to the side and shucked off her heavy jacket, tucking it around her shoulders and settling her behind a small rack of boxes. She would be hidden from sight if she stayed low and quiet. It was a temporary fix. Tears rushed forwards to her eyes and she raised one hand to brush them away, shaking her heavy head.

Turning away, and without a goodbye, the mother slipped out of the room and slunk away to die.

* * *

><p>The thing about travelling alone was that he easily got very bored. Oh, there were adventures to be had and running to do- he did love the running! -but there was no one to share it with. He couldn't bring himself to grab a human off the street and show them all of time and space. Amelia and Rory had their own life, now. He watched, sometimes, from across the street, hidden from view. He would watch his red-haired Amy Pond shouting from the doorway as Rory left for work. It was heart-wrenching, to say the very least. So, this is what prompted him to be sitting on the chair in the TARDIS console room, swinging his legs an scowling at the center console. He'd returned recently from watching a super nova and while it got his blood pumping, the Doctor found that the adrenaline was leaving his system more quickly than he would have liked.<p>

He felt lonely.

Bored and lonely and itchy. He wound his hands up and down his arms. He missed Amy and Rory. He even missed River, wild and vivacious as she was, causing trouble whever she went. A fond smile fell across his lips at the thought of her and the TARDIS made a delighted whirring noise.

"I miss them, too," he said quietly, sliding up from the chair and pressing his hands against the console. He stroked her levers and buttons and handles and grinned when she made metallic clicks in return. He slid his thumb across his lower lip as he began to fiddle with the TARDIS console. He would find something to alleviate his boredom. There had to be a planet in distress, someone to save.

The TARDIS made another whir, another beat, another click- but she sounded distressed. The Doctor wound his hand through his floppy fringe and flipped a lever. "What's wrong?" He asked, frowning and knitting his brows together. His machine jostled violentily; he had to grab onto the console to keep from being thrown to the ground. Despite his worry, he couldn't help the smile that flickered across his lips- this was exciting! This wasn't boring at all! "Let's go!" He encouraged, stamping his palm down against a button and pulling a lever. The TARDIS lurched and disappeared into the time vortex. He could feel it like a welcomed presence creeping along the outdoor walls of the TARDIS. His hearts raced in his chest like twin birds begging free of the rib-cage prison.

When the TARDIS came to a shuddering stop, he paused for several long moments to gain his footing. The whole of the universe could be outside his door. No matter how many times, he never got tired of it. How could he have ever thought that he had been bored? A grin broke apart his face and he darted to the door. There was no moment of waiting- he threw the doors open in an excited flurry.

Only to be met with the quiet hum of a mid-afternoon in the absolute middle of nowhere. Large trees pressed in around him. The TARDIS had landed in a small clearing. On the air he could hear the sound of cars passing; a road was not too far off. Sniffing the air, he could deduce that he was on Earth. It seemed like Amy's time, perhaps a few years off in either direction. He rapped his fingers on the door frame, drawing her tongue against his teeth as he peered out into the forest. The sun flittered down through the trees, making soft warm patches of sunlight inbetween the roots and branches.

"Okay," he said slowly, taking a step out into the direct sunlight that fell through the trees and warmed a patch of earth just outside his front door. "Forest. Why'd you bring me here?" He clicked his tongue and glanced over his shoulder. The TARDIS was annoyingly silent.

"Fine," he breathed, turning away. "Two can play at that game."

His attention was drawn almost immediately to the sound of a soft sniff. His ears honed in on the sound almost immediately. He could hear soft breathing, the sound of finger-nails gripping the bark of a tree. His eyes flickered to the nearest tree- a big pine with high branches and a heavy, rotund trunk. He moved slowly, his shoess seeming to step on every little twig that could make a snapping noise along the way. He winced.

"Hello?" He called, hoping to be helpful. He pressed his hand against the trunk of the nearest tree and followed the curve of it around to the other side. He peered down and there she stood. Perhaps two feet tall with big green eyes and small hands and a gentle round face. She was plump in a child-like way, with little fingers and toes that pointed inwards. She wore a torn and tattered little dress and whisps of thin black hair was in wisps about her face. Her fingers gripped the bark of the tree and his stomach dropped at the sight of them- her nails were ripped back on a few fingers and were covered in blood. Her dress, too, was splattered and stained. She smelled of illness.

But it was the skin, most of all, that arose curiosity: she was green.

Not a proper green, either. Not lime green or grass-green or even the green of the trees and the leaves. No, it was a most chartreuse. The skin looked soft and had a healthy glow to it. But it was most certainly green.

"Hello," he repeated softly, squatting so that they were eye-level.

The child wavered on her feet and he reached one gentle hand out to steady her on shoulder. It was at that moment that she lurged forward and opened her mouth- and sunk her teeth into his wrist.

He let out a surprised shout and grit his teeth. Her lips were peeled back in a terrible snarl and he saw now that her teeth were not as human as her small, flat face suggested they would be. The pain in his wrist radiated all the way up to his shoulder and down to every tip of his finger. His shout must have surprised her, because she jerked backwards and tripped over and over-grown root, falling onto her backside. He drew his wrist against his chest; he could feel blood trickling into his sleeve. Her teeth were razor sharp and they sneered at him from her position on the ground.

"No biting!" He scolded, raising one finger and shaking it at her.

She stared at him, as if uncomprehending. He could see now that her dress was nearly soaked through with blood, but none of it seeme to be her own. Her cheeks were muddy and her feet and hands dirty. He could only imagine what pain she was in from her finger-nails.

"I want to help you," the Doctor said slowly. "Where's your mother?"

Her lips twisted around those teeth and she seemed to be calculating whether or not to answer him. He couldn't particularly blame her. After what she had been through- whatever that had been -he could only imagine that she wasn't keen to trust anyone.

"What's your name?" He tried again, his voice a little softer.

"Wren."

The simple word seems to be forced out, choked on by a dry throat. He observes her- Wren -and takes in her condition. "What happened to you, Wren?" He asked.

She seems to twist her lips and struggle for words again. "Lots of noises," she said at long last. "And flashing. Mama went out. I hid." She twissted her expression and sat up a little straighter. The Doctor looked away only long enough to assess that his wrist wasn't going to rot off. His eyes flickered back towards the strange green child.

"Who were you hiding from?" He asked.

"The people." She whispered the words quietly, tears coming suddenly to her eyes. Unnerved, the Doctor eyed her. "The people and they hurt Mama and Mama went away and I hid."

"Well, you aren't hiding now," he said slowly. It sounded as if she had been inside a building somewhere- sirens and flashing lights. He was a clever man, he could deduce that much. Wherever it had been, it couldn't be far, not with how small she was and the close proximity to the road. "Did you run away from the people?"

Wren nodded slowly, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her wrist. "There was a hole. I pulled it open and went down and crawled and crawled and then I came out."

A drain, he realized swiftly, eyes flickering back to her hands. It would explain the ripped back nails if she was pulling at metal drain coverings in the floors of buildings. He reached for her hand and his time she didn't bite him. Her hands were small and tiny; her skin was soft and he brushed his thumb along the gentle joint of her wrist.

"You're a very strong little girl," he said quietly. "You're not human, are you?" He flipped her hand over and lifted it, checking her joints as he bent her arm at the elbow.

Wren looked at him blankly and he took that for a yes. "I can make your hand better," he insisted. "If you'll let me."

"I'm waiting for Mama," Wren told him, rather matter-of-factly. It made his hearts clench in his chest. He imagined that her mother wasn't going to be coming back for her. Before he could speak, she went on. "Mama says if I'm lost, then I have to stay put. And she'll find me."

"It's only over there," the Doctor said, gesturing over his shoulder. "You can wait for your mother while I fix your hand."

Wren seemed to consider it carefully, drawing her razor-sharp teeth across her lower lip. He wasn't surprised to find that her skin resisted the sharp weapons like some kind of leather. "I'm sure your hands hurt," he said gently.

Finally, she nodded. The Doctor stood. His knees creaked. Perhaps he was getting old, after all. Wren held onto his pointer finger (it was all she could reach) as he lead her back around the tree and to the TARDIS. The door stood ajar just as he had left it, the patch of sunlight having crept just an inch or two away. Wren's grip was strong and he imagined that she was far more fit to survive than he initially thought. He glanced down at her as he lead her into the police box. Her brown eyes surveyed the scene almost critically, thought it was with a child's imagination that she was able to accept the idea that it was bigger on the inside. The Doctor smiled, pursing his lips together.

He swung her up onto the seat at the center console. "Don't touch anything and don't move," he instructed. "I'll be right back to fix up your hands. Yeah?"

Wren nodded, sticking her thumb in her mouth and settling back against the seat.

The Doctor quit the console room and retreated to the infimary to find some bandages. He moved quickly, uncertain about leaving Wren alone for too long. "This is where you take me?" He asked the TARDIS aloud as he spun through the infimary. He tucked the bandages under his arm and grabbed the first aid kit that Amy had shoved into one of the corners. His chest tightened at the mere thought. "To a lost little girl without parents, covered in blood... It's depressing, not interesting." He took in a sharp breath and shook his head. "A lost, green little girl. A lost, inhuman, green litle girl." He brushed his thumb across the cover of the first aid kit momentarily before spinning away and heading back towards the console room.

Wren hadn't moved, but there was color coming back to her cheeks, if that were at all possible. He knelt in front of her and pulled her thumb from her lips. He removed the nails that were hanging on by ver little, clenching his throat when she began to cry from the pain. Even strong little girls could only hold on so long, he figured. He disinfected her cuts and bandaged her hands. They were two little semi-useless clubs by the time he was done. Her thumbs stuck out as did the pinky on her left hand and the pointer finger on her right. He placed his hands on either side of her when he was done. She had stopped crying and was now staring at him almost expectantly.

"Well," he said slowly. "Wren. I'm the Doctor."

"Can you find Mama?" She asked suddenly, her eyes flickering above and around him to explore the expanse of the TARDIS.

The Doctor swallowed thickly. With the amount of blood on her dress, he couldn't imagine that without help her mother had survived whatever had happened to them. "I can try," he said quietly.

"Okay," Wren agreed. It was as simple as that. Perplexed and uncertain, the Doctor gave a stiff nod in return.

"Okay." He said. "Okay."


	2. Chapter 2

**Title,** Song Bird  
><strong>Author,<strong> sarahbellesays  
><strong>Summary,<strong> The Doctor discovers a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls. (AU, sort of.)  
><strong>Author's Note,<strong> I had the first two chapters of this story already written up, so I decided to just throw this one up there. Chapter three is in progress, of course~ I guess there's nothing much to say about this one. Hope you enjoy it!  
><strong>Disclaimer,<strong> I do not own Doctor Who.

* * *

><p>She fell asleep curled up on the small chair in the console room. The Doctor watched her with a hard expression. He couldn't imagine what he was going to do with or how he was going to find the mother that he was sure had passed. In the lights of the console room, her skin seemed to almost glow and shimmer on her bones. She gnawed on her lower lip in her sleep and little snores escaped her small nose. He rubbed his palm against his face, letting out a soft sigh. What in the world was he going to do with her?<p>

He pushed himself off the console and reached down to brush his fingers through her hair. He plucked a strand off the top of her head; she stirred but didn't awaken. Carrying it carefully between to pressed finger-tips, the Doctor spun on the console and pressed a button. A small slid spit out, looking like a disc player. He placed the hair carefully on the scanner and pressed it back into the console. He dragged the screen around and held it by the handles, watching as the DNA was processed through his faithful companion.

He chewed his lower lip as he watched the information spit across the screen. It was worse than he would have thought. Wren hovered on the boarder-line of disastrous for the human race. He wouldn't have pegged her for a Galfraxis. Everything about her was so _human_, after all. She didn't have the elongated snout or the black eyes. The skin was green, however, and those teeth! He glanced over his shoulder to the sleeping Wren. Her teeth had moved onto gnawing her wrist in her sleep. There was no damage done to her skin.

"Galfraxis it is," he murmured beneath his breath. His eyes turned back to the screen. The information gathered concluded that she was about six years old. "Though, not completely Galfraxis," he said quietly, drawing his finger across the screen. There was Human in her. That would account for the looks. He pulled the screen along with him as he went to the type-writer keyboard so that he could type in the coordinates to the planet. What was she doing all the way here, on Earth? He paused, his fingers hovering above the keys. His teeth grit and grinded.

Pattering his fingers against the keys, he looked searched for the state of the Galfraxis planet. His brows knit together as the information began to trail across the screen. Galfraxis was a warring state. The plant was in a state of complete economic and environmental chaos. He winced at the number of civilian casualties that sprawled across the screen. His gaze turned away and he settled his eyes on Wren. She slept so peaceful and quiet.

He ran his fingers through his hair, letting out a soft breath. While he was no longer bored, he was now rather stuck. He had two choices: return Wren to Galfraxis and risk setting her free in a warring state or attempt to find the mother that he was ninety-nine percent sure was dead. He drew his thumb across her lip in worry.

Then again, he thought, if he returned her to her planet he would be no better than the monsters that chased her so far away from it. He watched her little rib-cage rise and fall as she slept. He couldn't leave her with anyone on Earth, either. Those teeth, that skin- even her strength. Mixed with human, she would much sooner be gutted and explored for scientific purposes than taken care of like a little girl should be.

"You're one to talk," he muttered quietly. There was a pain in his chest and he let out a shaky breath. He had no desire to be taking a stroll down memory lane now. Reaching into his inner jacket pocket, he pulled out the small leather wallet that had gotten him through so much- out of and into so much trouble! He fingered it carefully before flipping it open to peer at the psychic paper. He felt a firm guilt beginning to grow in the center of his chest. He tapped it against his fingertips. So lost in thought squabbling with himself over the right and wrong of what he was about to do, the Doctor hardly noticed when Wren began to stir and awaken.

She stretched and yawned before curling tighter in on herself; she peered up at him with her cheek buried in her crossed arms. "Doctor?" She chirped.

"Ah, Wren!" He said, solidifying his resolve. He went to kneel in front of her, holding out the psychic paper to her. "I found this." He had remove the paper from its sleeve and now held it between two fingers. She unfolded herself and sat up, looking between him and the paper. He rose his brows and let a smile fall over his lips, though he knew it didn't reach his eye. He couldn't imagine that she would notice.

She took it and held it in her small hands, peering down at the writing scribbled on it. "What's it say?" She asked, holding it back towards him.

"It says," he said slowly, moving so that he could look at the paper with her. "Wren," his voice caught just the slightest. "Wren, I love you very much. The Doctor will keep you safe until I can come back for you." The words were printed across the paper as soon as he spoke them- and with all the will that he desired for it to be so, he knew that those would be the words she saw every time she looked at the paper.

Wren stared at the paper quietly, turning it every which way. "Did she give it to you?" She asked. "Mama was here? How come she left? How come she didn't take me, too?" The child was beginning to get worked up, tears squeezing from her eyes, lips twisting, sharp teeth gnashing. The Doctor sucked in a breath. His hands hovered uselessly on either side of her as she began to sob, kicking her feet and clutching the paper to her chest.

"She had to go," the Doctor lied, uselessly. "To make sure to keep you safe from the people who hurt you."

Wren was inconsolable and he stood and ran his fingers through his hair uncertainty. "Wren," he said, pacing back and forth while she sobbed. "Wren," he tried again.

"I- want- Mama-!"

Children!

"She'll come back!" He said anxiously. "Here, I know what we can do- Wren- Wren are you listening?"

She paused in her wailing to pin him with a tearful stare. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and a pen. He knelt down and smoothed it against her little leg. "We'll leave her a note," he said. "And when she comes back, she can call us in here. And then we can come back and then-"

"Do it!" Wren sobbed. "Do it!"

The Doctor felt his stomach sinking in and his heart wrenching as he quickly scribbled down a number that would redirect to no-where and a small note. Wren took the pen and drew a shaky heart at the bottom of it. She hopped off the chair and took the note. The Doctor followed her to the doors of the TARDIS, watching as she leaned up on her tip-toes to reach the handle. It swung inward and she darted out into the forest. The sun had moved while she slept and the light was fading. He followed her, keeping his eyes on her tiny, twisting form.

Wren took her time looking for the perfect place to lay the note so that her mother would find it. She decided on setting it beneath a big pine tree with over-grown roots. When she placed the note, she ran back to the Doctor and peered up at him. Her eyes were dry, her cheeks ruddy from her earlier crying. "Okay," she said brightly, slipping between his legs and darting back into the TARDIS. He took a breath before sliding back inside, closing the door behind him.

"Alright," he said, clapping his hands together. "Do you know what this place is, Wren?" He knew she didn't- but she looked up at him from the chair with big eyes and the excitement on her face was worth the silliness of such a question.

"Is it your house?" She asked.

He laughed. "Yes," he agreed. "But it also can go anywhere at all in the whole universe."

"Can it go to Mama?" She asked, hopeful.

The Doctor swallowed thickly. "I don't know where she is, Wren," he said.

"When she calls," Wren insisted. "When she calls you'll know, right? Then we can go to her?"

"Right." The Doctor agreed with a firm nod. "Until then, would you like to see the stars?"

"What's stars?"

"You've never seen the stars?" The Doctor asked, incredulous. It was a real favor he was doing her, then, by taking her along with him. He would figure out what he would be able to do with her later. For now, however, Wren needed to see the stars and she needed to see them now. He swung around the center console on long legs, fast fingers flicking switches and tapping buttons and pulling levers. It was all second nature to him now as he spun the who-sit-thingy and clicked the space-wacey do-hickey.

The TARDIS shuttered and shook and Wren let out a screech that was half surprise and half laughter. It was only space, he decided. He could open the TARDIS doors and show her space. Show her stars. If he could do anything at all, he could do this. When the ship stopped its jostling about, he turned to look at the strange green girl. She was laughing and smiling and he couldn't help but smile back. He held out his hand to her and she grabbed it, tugging him lopsided as they made their way to the door. He hoisted her into his arms and held her against his hip.

"Wren," he said softly as he pulled open the TARDIS doors. "The stars."

The look on her face was worth a million lies about her mother and a million fake numbers and phone calls and psychic notes. Her absolute wonder was worth everything, ever. He watched her face as she watched the galaxies spill out in front of her. Those eyes peered across the stars. Her little hands clutched the fabric of his jacket, but he could practically see her yearn, reaching, stretching outwards for the stars. Her mouth fell open and her eyes grew wide and round as saucers.

It was worth a lie.

"Can we show Mama, too?" Wren whispered into his ear, pressing her face to his own. She nuzzled her cheek against his hair.

The lie was going to become to big for him to batter down, soon. "Yes," he said quietly.

Satisfied, Wren turned her head back out to watch the stars- to fall in love.

* * *

><p>The Doctor discovered quickly that Wren was a little girl with little girl needs. While she wasn't human, she was far enough away from Time Lord that he had trouble figuring out what it was she would need. The TARDIS was kind enough to provide a room that Wren would like. She explored it will all the vigor of a child, upturning her sheets and uncovering every nook and cranny. She seemed ready to nob back off by the time she was done.<p>

The Doctor watched her from the doorway, leaning against it with his arms and ankles crossed. Wren seemed to take little notice of him. She found paper and colors in a drawer and pulled them out. She left them on the floor while she went to go and pull open the closet. Clothes for her were inside and the Doctor stroked the doorframe of the bedroom, hoping his old girl would know he appreciated the gesture of not making him go out and about to try and shop for clothes for a little girl.

"Help me, help me!" Wren demanded as she began to shuck out of her blood-stained dress. She'd thrown a pair of trouser and a purple tee-shirt onto the floor. The Doctor shifted, ready to cross the room and assist her when she got it over her head. "Got it!" She declared, moving to put on the fresh clothes. Her green skin continued uninterrupted from head to ruddy toes. The knobs in her spine were prominent, despite the healthy weight to her. He could only imagine what bit of evaluation was waiting just beneath her leather-tough skin. She pulled on the fresh clothes, rubbing her hands along the fabric of the trousers as if she'd never felt anything like it in her life.

"Color with me," she insisted as she threw herself onto the floor where she'd left the paper and pencils.

The Doctor crossed the room and folded his legs as he sat on the floor. She didn't require much more than that and he was thankful, too lost in thought to be able to entertain her any more than sitting in her presence. She held the pencils in a tightly closed fist and scribbled on the paper with no discernible talent or direction. It was a child's drawing and the Doctor had never been more grateful for it.

She couldn't stay on the TARDIS. The elaborate lie he had concocted was so that she would not have to go through the emotional turmoil of a dead mother at such a young age. Yet, it was inevitable. She would find out sooner or later and the Doctor was coming to a loss of what to do about it. To keep her in the TARDIS would severely hinder his ability to adventure and would, ultimately, cramp his style. Not that he had a style, per se. But Wren would need constant looking after. She was a child, after all, one who had escaped war and whatever other horrors had befallen her since coming to Earth with her fugative mother.

Wren nodded off while coloring and he hoisted her gently into the bed, tucking the disheveled covers around her and brushing his hand along the top of her head. He thought, fondly, of River and of Amy and Rory. He could only imagine their reaction if he attempt to thrust strange, green Wren upon them. She would never be safer, he knew. But he couldn't face them- not yet, not now. Not after he had excluded himself so certainly from their life.

He clicked off the light as he left and shut the door. He debated whether or not to lock it behind him, just in case she went bumbling about in the middle of the night. Well, he thought sourly as he locked the door, there went his night-time excursions.

Life was a lonely place without sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title,** Song Bird  
><strong>Author,<strong> sarahbellesays  
><strong>Summary,<strong> The Doctor discovers a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls. (AU, sort of.)  
><strong>Author's Note,<strong> So many chapters in one day! Hah. Well, here's chapter three. I hope if you're reading this, you're enjoying it. (:  
><strong>Disclaimer,<strong> I do not own Doctor Who.

* * *

><p>"I'm hungry."<p>

The sound of her voice startled him. He jumped slightly, swinging in his harness beneath the glass floor in the console room. He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead. He was mid-repair, trying to get a bit of new life back into his old girl, when Wren appeared at the bottom of the steps. Her hair was all over and her eyes looked as if she was about to fall right back asleep where she stood. It had been so silent that he had nearly forgotten all about her (though that was a bold-faced lie). He did, however, distinctly remember locking the bedroom door. That had been several hours ago, though floating through space did severely damage your sense of time on a clock.

"You're hungry?" He asked.

She nodded and raised one hand to rub at her eyes.

The Doctor paused. "What do you want?"

"Food," she said, wrinkling her nose at him.

"Right," he grumbled, unhooking himself from his harness and letting the goggles drop. He lowered himself to the floor beneath the platform and crossed to the stairs. She held her arms up to him to be carried and he hesitated. He didn't want the risk of getting attached. He wasn't keeping her.

He wasn't.

When Wren grunted, he reached down and hoisted her up so that she could settle against his hip. She wound her tiny little arms around his neck and pressed her face to his cheek. She was a small warm body and he imagined that his body temperature was a few degrees hotter than her own. She yawned and he somehow felt she was less hungry and more... well, a little girl, looking for someone to carry her. He trailed through the TARDIS corridors and into the kitchen.

_I deserve this kitchen!_ Amy used to say every time, huffing and puffing and glaring adoringly.

_You never cook,_ Rory would quip. And they would all laugh.

He missed the laughter the most, he supposed. The adventures, the running, they were all fine and dandy. The fun they used to have putting their lives at risk... he would have given it all up for the laughter. In a way, he already had. By stepping away, he had saved Amy and Rory and kept their laughter alive.

Kept them alive.

"What would you like, Wren?" The Doctor asked to drag himself out of his morbid thoughts. He set her lightly on the counter and watched her swing her legs. "I know something you'll love."

It seemed he was only destined to sink further into his own self-loathing tonight. He prepared for her his favorite dish- fish fingers and custard -while she watched with curious eyes. He grinned as he set it down beside her on the counter. Drawing her legs beneath her, she brought one of the custard-lathered fish fingers to her lips, sniffed it, and then chomped down with those razor sharp teeth. It was a certain reminder (besides that skin) that she was extremely not human. She was extremely not Time Lord, for that matter.

She spit it on the floor with a shout of disgust and the Doctor discovered that she was also extremely not polite.

"Fine," he sniffed, pulling the plate away as he popped a fish finger into his mouth. "What do you like?" He asked, mouth full and quite rude himself.

"Sweets," she said, throwing her hands up excitedly.

"You have to eat supper before sweets," the Doctor said. He wrinkled his nose and waited a beat before shaking his head. "No, that's rubbish, that's an awful rule. Always eats sweets first. I have ice-cream- peanut butter and chocolate."

He handed her the small tub of ice cream from the fridge and a spoon. Hopping onto the counter beside her, he watched her eat. She dug in happily, devouring the sweet as if she hadn't eaten in days. Which, he supposed, could have been an option. He wasn't sure how long she had been wandering before he found her. How long she'd been hiding, on the run with her mother. Two aliens in a world that didn't understand them.

She could barely hold the tub if ice cream in her lap as she shoveled it into her mouth. Those teeth were for breaking bones and ripping meat off

skeletons. They were hunter's teeth. They barely grazed the ice cream. She was nearly swallowing it whole.

"I'm still hungry," she insisted when the entire tub of ice cream was gone and her teeth were chattering and clicking away as she sat and shivered on the counter.

The Doctor imagined the next hour or so as a montage of him preparing her several different meals and having her reject each of them. He made her macaroni and cheese, a whole chicken breast, and hamburgers that he didn't know how to make so he gave them to her raw. Finally, as a last ditch effort, he warmed up a can of Spaghettio's that Amy had left behind and dumped it in a bowl.

"Try this," he insisted, sliding it across the counter to her. She ignored the fork he'd provided and held the bowl up to her lips, slurping down the mixture of who-knows-what and tomato sauce. Lowering the bowl away from her lips, she had a bloody-toothed smile and a delight washed over her face. The Doctor reclined against the counter in relief. Finally.

She ate the rest of the bowl and afterwards the Doctor was able to coax her back into bed. He left her there, leaving the door unlocked this time.

It would do no use. The TARDIS wouldn't let any harm come to her.

"Now, what do you do?"

Wren sighed and rolled her eyes and tapped her hands against her knees. "Sit in my room and shut up," she recited for the hundredth time. The Doctor gave a firm nod. She was wearing a white dress that stood stark against her green skin as she sat on the edge of her bed.

"Not a peep," he reminded, bringing his finger to his lips. "Not until I get back."

Wren sighed again.

She did that a lot. Sigh. Sigh and sigh and sigh. He wondered if her mother did the same things, said the same words. Wherever they lived, wherever they hid, he wondered if her mother pressed her fingers to her lips and said, now what do you do? He imagined Wren would sigh like she was doing then and roll her big, human eyes and recite whatever it is her mother told her to do. Sit still and shut up. He imagined Wren was rather good at that.

If he wanted to be honest, he rather liked it. It meant she was getting used to him. He was starting to get that 'taken for granted' feeling of parenthood that he, strangely, missed so much. She was starting to ignore him- or at least, she was starting to ignore that he wasn't her mother.

"I won't be gone long," he insisted. The pep-talk had been going on long enough. He'd landed in London and he knew he needed to go out and ... well, be domestic. Grocery shop. The thought set his teeth on edge and he straightened the cuffs of his tweed jacket. She wouldn't eat much else other than the Spaghettio's. She devoured the meat well enough, but other than that she protested anything he gave her. She was starting to become more bothersome than endearing. While he knew she couldn't stay, he also knew he couldn't let her starve until he figured out what to do with her.

"Bye," she said, dismissively.

The Doctor fidgeted before retreating from her room, closing the door and locking it behind him. "You keep it that way," he insisted to the TARDIS. "You hear me?

The heat clicked on and the vents whirred.

"Good," he grumbled.

Wren, over the past week, had gotten the TARDIS to do whatever she pleased. A door was locked? Not anymore. Got lost? New hallway. If she didn't like a room, it disappeared. The child was a nightmare, albeit a cute one. She explored his ship with all the guts of a full grown woman on a mission. She'd yet to find the library, though when she did he could only imagine the stock of books the TARDIS would give her for entertainment, and how many times she would beg him to read them to her.

When she wasn't hanging around the console room staring at the phone perched on the center console, she was following him around his daily tasks of keeping up maintenance on his ship. She insisted she could help only to muck things up and make a bigger mess for him to clean later. When she wasn't mucking things up, she was eating. And she ate a lot.

She ate and she got rid of it and she ate some more.

He would have to start making some preparations to get her out of the TARDIS. There had to be a place for refugees of warring states to go for peace. He knew there was, in fact. He would take her there as soon as he could manage. Really, he would.

Stepping into the crisp spring air of London, the Doctor shook all thoughts of Wren and her books and her unlocked doors away for the time being.

He took a deep breath and let out a sigh. "Time to be domestic," he declared with a false enthusiasm.

* * *

><p>He returned with more food than he thought they would need. More than another week's worth. More than a month's worth. He would have felt bad about using the psychic paper to get him the food without having to actually pay for it, if it weren't for the fact that Wren met him at the door, excited and clearly ignoring his rules about sitting put in her room and not making a peep. If it weren't for the fact that she met him at the door as if he had been gone for days, not an hour. If it weren't for the fact that she hugged his legs and dug through the paper bags as he dragged them, two by two, into the TARDIS. Yeah, he would have felt bad. If it weren't for all that.<p>

"Do this," Wren demanded of him later that afternoon after all the food was put away and her belly was full and she was uncomplaining. She pulled her lower lid down with her index finger and stuck out her tongue.

The Doctor repeated the action.

They sat on the floor of her bedroom and had been back and forth this silly face game. Wren had gone through all she could think of and was repeating them with little variation.

"Do this," she insisted as she pulled at the corner of her lips with both fingers hooked into her cheeks, wrinkling her nose and making a sneer.

The Doctor mimicked her.

Each time she would laugh, insisting that he looked _much_ funnier when he did it. It was small laugh, an un-cultured laugh. A little, tiny laugh from her little, tiny lungs. A little chirp. He wondered if that was the laugh she would laugh when her mother did something silly, but shh, we mustn't get caught. The Doctor figured that wherever they were living it was in secret and that meant keeping to themselves and making quiet noises. He wondered how they managed, what with how Wren would eat. He imagined her mother tucking her into some hidden store room, pressing her fingers to her lips, then disappearing into the night to break into houses and gather as much food as she possible could.

He found himself thinking about her mother a lot, like a dog worrying over a bone. He kept thinking about how she would handle this situation or that situation. When Wren overflowed two of the three toilets in the TARDIS' various bathrooms the Doctor had scolded her and sent her to her room, but she'd only tee-hee'd her way back into the console room after five minutes. She'd spilled flour all over the kitchen and they'd only ending up playing in it. He couldn't even work up a good hushed-shout.

Having been a father once, the Doctor was well-versed in the ways of... well, parenthood. Not that he was her parent or any obscure substitute. He was more like a glorified babysitter. He was practically letting her get away with murder. There had to be a reason why.

"Has Mama called?" Wren asked suddenly.

Oh. Right. That's why.

"No," the Doctor answered.

"Oh."

The simple word broke his heart more than he wanted to admit that it did. It clenched his twin hearts in its simple mono-syllable grasp and refused to release him. Her sucked in a sharp breath and tried to soothe away the pain she was forcing on him with her little simple oh.

"Do this," Wren went on, pushing her nose up like a pig.

And like a full-blown sucker, the Doctor mimicked her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title,** Song Bird  
><strong>Author,<strong> sarahbellesays  
><strong>Summary,<strong> The Doctor discovers a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls. (AU, sort of.)  
><strong>Author's Note,<strong> Hooray, onto chapter four! I've had a few people add this story to their story watch and that makes me all kinds of excited! So, if you're one of them, hi! And welcome back! And I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please don't forget to review. Even if you tell me you hate it, i get very few emails so I'd love to hear from you. (:  
><strong>Disclaimer,<strong> I do not own Doctor Who.

* * *

><p>The Doctor discovered very quickly that colors and playing cards were not going to keep Wren entertained forever. He also discovered that he wasn't the only one to go stir-crazy. While he could waltz in and out of the TARDIS to do whatever he pleased with whomever he pleased, Wren was confined to the single- albeit enormous -space. She was getting used to the layout the TARDIS had made especially for her: her bedroom, the console room, the kitchen and the bathroom were all connected by one long hall-way. She was often looped back into the same hall whenever she attempted to go exploring. The Doctor would have to remember to thank the old girl for it, soon.<p>

He wasn't sure how to alleviate Wren's boredom without taking her to another planet entirely where her green skin wouldn't be squinted at with uncertainty by prying human eyes. He could do that, he supposed- but the thing of it was, disaster seemed to follow him wherever he went. That was why he was parked in London. Quiet. Safe. Unmoving. That was why he was stuffing Wren's arms into her jacket and brushing her hair back from the collar (it was growing like weeds, now). That was why he was taking her to a park in the dead of night where no eyes would be prying.

"Where're we going?" She asked as he zipped up her jacket. Her little feet were bare- she detested the boots he tried to shove on her.

"To play," the Doctor responded. "Don't you want to get out for a while?"

Wren tilted her head and looked up at him, big eyes seeming almost avian, now. He tried not to think about that, not really. Wren. She was a little song-bird who tee-hee'd her quiet little laughs and chirped her quiet little giggles. She chattered at him all day long in between drawing and playing cards and staring at the telephone that would never, ever ring. She was doing it less and less now as the spring days were beginning to fade into early summer- the kind of days where the sun heated up the day time and the night-time sucked all the warmth away. Which was precisely why he was trying to straighten her jacket around her little body, now.

"Where?" Wren chirped.

"To a park," he said, pulling her along by the hand as he lead her towards the TARDIS door.

"What's that?"

"You'll see."

The doors swung inwards as he opened them and he ushered her out in front of him. The park was nestled in a quiet neighborhood, unassuming and silent. There were orange street-lamps that illuminated the equipment. The street was quiet. It was the dead of night- perhaps one or two in the morning. Her breath puffed out of her lips as she stepped into the night-time air. Her little hands wrung together.

"Well?" He asked.

"What's it do?" She looked up at him with a look that clearly stated that she was not amused with his choice of entertainment.

"You play on it," he replied, taken aback by her clear lack of knowledge on how to be a child. He stepped outside the TARDIS into the brisk night air and shut the door behind him. He lead her towards the playground, stopping at the swings. "Here, sit and I'll push you."

She eyed him in that skeptical way she had about her before hopping onto the seat, her tiny green hands clenching the chains. He pulled her back and pushed her forward gently. "Kick your leg!" He instructed.

After a few awkward kicks, Wren figured out how to use the momentum of her legs to pump them back and forth until she got the swing going. The Doctor stood behind her and pressed against her back as she came flying back towards him. He watched as her little legs, peeking out from beneath her dress, pumped at the pivot of her knees: buttward, skyward, buttward, skyward. Backlight against the orange lights and the night sky, she looked as if she was flying.

Her laughter rang like bells.

* * *

><p>They spent the whole night until day break running and jumping and chasing and swinging and climbing and falling. Every bit of the playground (small as it was) was explored, cataloged and declared either fun or not fun. Most of it was fun. The Doctor made a note to himself to bring her to a bigger playground with more nooks and more crannies. When day break was just around the corner, the edges of the sky turning that dusty grey before the sunrise, the Doctor was able to to hoist Wren against his him and carry her back inside the TARDIS with no complaint what-so-ever. After weeks cramped inside the TARDIS, she got her first taste of freedom and she'd sucked it up until she was bloated and sick of it.<p>

He tucked her into bed and closed the door behind him while she snored her little snores and sawed away her tiny-teeny logs. He supposed he should feel exhausted, but there was nothing. That feeling didn't even begin to reach him, anymore. His eyes were as clear as earlier that night and there was no exhaustion creeping against his bones.

And it was then that it hit him: as he stood there quietly leaning against the wall on the other side of Wren's room, it struck him like a ton of bricks and he had to reach his hand against the door frame to steady himself. The TARDIS was so quiet. Without the sound of her clicking and tutting and bouncing through the ship, the time machine was like one giant echo. He'd felt it before, he always did- after his companions left, slipping out that door and moving on with their life. That emptiness. That silence.

But Wren was only asleep. She wasn't gone. She would be soon, though, he promised himself with a half-hearted attempt to shake his mind off how much he missed the moments when she was awake. Even when he attempted to punish her for some infraction or another (the latest having been some-how super gluing all of his tools to the bathroom floor) that she tee-hee'd her way out of. The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair and over his face.

"She has to go," he said aloud. He said it out loud so that he could hear the resolve in his voice (though there was none). He put his foot down and clenched his fist. "She's leaving." It was too dangerous in the TARDIS for a child. He spun on his heels and headed for the console room. The familiar beeps and bumps and whirrs reminded him of home and he placed his hands on the center console. He stroked his long digits against the cool metal surface.

"She's leaving," he tried again, though his voice sounded all the more feeble, stupid, weak. His teeth clenched together but no extra resolve came from that either. "I can't keep her like some puppy!" He demanded, as if arguing with the TARDIS itself. His old girl simple whirred away, noncommittal as always.

"And she can't tag along when some planet decides to explode and I have to save it," he defended weakly. "She's not clever. She destroys everything. She's fussy and annoying." But it wasn't working. Sooner or later, he would have to admit that to himself, but for now he stubbornly went on listing the reason why it was a very very bad idea to go on keeping Wren in the TARDIS as he was. "She can't even walk outside in daylight without someone peeping at her. She'd be sliced open and experimented on in an instant." He paused to relive a moment, two lives ago, when he was strapped to a gurney, his insides x-rayed and his skin heated and tensing against his bones, down in the basement of some institute.

That was with her.

His mind traveled down a very different path as soon as he reached that particular roadblock. A path of pain and guilt and self-loathing that forced him to drop into the chair, his hands hanging between his knees.

"How did I come this far?" He asked out loud, drawing his palm across his face.

The only answer was the heavy echo of silence.

* * *

><p>"Why can't I come?" Wren asked for the tenth time, sitting on the steps in one of her dresses, crossing her arms. She was in full-blown pout mode and the Doctor was trying very hard not to succumb to it.<p>

"Because," he answered for the tenth time. "I won't be gone long and it's daylight out."

"So jump to night-time," Wren insisted.

"Normal people sleep at night."

"That's dumb."

"Tell me about it."

They shared a secret smile. The Doctor liked that smile. It was like she would unzip her lips just for him- she'd start with one edge of her mouth then slowly peel it across, revealing fang by dangerous fang. It was the smile she did when she was trying to be mad at him but couldn't. The smile she did when they shared a moment. Like that one. Like that very moment. He paused at the door, looking over his shoulder. She was framed by the shallow stairs that lead down from the platform. Her hair had grown to almost touching her shoulders now. She wore it behind her ears, but other than that left it mostly unbrushed and unattended to.

It had been another couple of weeks and time seemed to fly where it once crawled. Wren was becoming comfortable in her own skin and in the skin of the TARDIS. She stopped watching the phone. She stopped even asking about her mother. Her curious lack of curiosity almost worried him, and some part of him figured that she knew and just wasn't telling him. Wasn't letting him off the hook. Some part of him figured that she was going to keep him dangling on this meat hook of anxiety until he broke down and told her the truth.

"I'll be back in two shakes of a peacocks feather," the Doctor quipped.

"You talk funny."

And, just like that, Wren took back all the warmth of her secret smile and the Doctor was left feeling like an estrange parent all over again. He shot her a look before disappearing out the TARDIS door.

The street was familiar. He'd spent long afternoons watching it. The thin, tall, long houses stretched in a row in front of him. The familiar red car sat parked out front. He could remember when he last left them. His hands found his pockets and he leaned his back against the TARDIS for several long moments- gaining strength, gaining courage. He missed them more than he could say, but whether or not he could walk right back into their lives was another matter entirely. The air was warm and cheery and the sky was blue as ever, not a cloud dotting it. No aliens, either. No space-crafts, no invasions, no nothing. A normal day on a normal street.

He hurried across it to that familiar blue door before the universe decided to make his day not-so normal.

He stood there, anxious, nervous, his twin hearts racing each other to a heart-attack as he pressed one slender finger against the doorbell. It buzzed and his ears twitched at the sound of it on the other side of those walls. Half of him wanted to run. The other half stayed firmly rooted to the door-step.

The door swung open and Amelia Pond stood in it's frame, red hair swirling about her face and catching against her lower lip. Her eyes, green and wide as saucers, stared him down. It seemed she hadn't aged a day, though how long it had truly been was far beyond him. Time in the TARDIS was twitchy, elongated, mushed together so days seemed like years and years seemed like the simple blink of an eye. Time with Wren was much the same, though he was beginning to learn to count off clock-ticks by the sound of her voice.

Amy stared at him for what seemed like ages. The Doctor felt uncomfortable after the first five seconds, but she refused to unpin him with her dagger-glare. He felt like a bug being pinned with a needle against a cork-board. "Hello," he said, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. "I'm not sure..."

"Six months," she said. Her voice lacked its usual Scottish tilt. The accent was there, of course, but the biting of her words was softened. Dulled. He stiffened and narrowed his own gaze, trying to unveil what it was that had her so subdued. He wanted to crawl inside her, fix it.

"Oh," he stammered lamely.

Six months wasn't so bad, he rationalized. Six months. That was like a walk in the park, for him. But then, the past few weeks had all been.. orderly. Time passing day by day as it should. Ordinary days unable to be skipped. Every moment of Wren's life, calculated by when she got up and when she went to sleep. Slowly. And in the right order. The Doctor suddenly felt very guilty about six months.

"Can I come in?" He asked, reminded quickly that he had told Wren he wouldn't be long. And that was how it was going to go, was it? His movements, his adventures, his schedule, fixed around the moments that Wren was awake and chattering away, tee-hee-ing her way out of trouble and eating twice her body-weight.

"Is this a social call?" Amy quipped, raising her brow. The tilt was back to her voice and his anxiety settled, though only a miniscule amount.

"I miss you," his mouth said without his consent. All this make-shift parenting business had him feeling sentimental.

And Amy smiled the way Wren did, unzipping her lips and laughing softly as she stepped back, holding door open for him to step into the hall.

"So let me get this straight," Rory said as he sidled back into the living room, carrying three cups of tea precariously in his hands. "You found a little orphaned green alien girl and have been keeping her like some pet in the TARDIS for the past few weeks." He glanced up as he set the mugs on the coffee table and settled onto the couch beside Amy. "That it?"

"Good that," Amy mumbled as he brought her mug to her lips and took a light sip of the tea. The Doctor held his in his palms, wrinkling his forehead and scowling into his drink.

"That's about it," he agreed, peeking back up at them. Their living room was cozy. The furniture was close together and there was a nice sized television and a fire place. Above the mantel there were pictures of them all together- Rory and Amy and River. A family. An unconventional family but a family nonetheless. Replicas of Van Gogh paintings hung on the wall and the Doctor fought a smile.

"I'm at a loss," he went on. "Her planet is on the verge of complete and utter destruction. Her mother is, in all likelihood by the amount of blood I found on her, dead. There's no where safe for her on Earth."

"I sense a 'but' at the end of that..." Rory mumbled.

"-But," the Doctor said. "But here."

"You want to shove a kid on us after disappearing for six months?" Amy snapped. "I don't think so."

"Not shoving her," the Doctor sighed. "I don't know what else to do. I can't keep her on the TARDIS."

"Cramp your style?" Amy jabbed meanly.

"You don't have a maternal bone in your body," the Doctor snapped back, just as meanly.

"Enough, you two." Rory intervened and the Doctor hated feeling like a child being told to behave. He settled further back against the love seat while Amelia shot him furious glares over the rim of her tea.

"Let's met her," he suggested then. He nudge Amy lightly. "Yeah? No commitment, no nothing. Let's just meet her."

The Doctor perked up at the sound of that, casting his eyes cautiously over to the red-headed fire cracker. She seemed to chew on the idea before finally spitting out, "Okay."

The Doctor grinned and clapped his hands together. "Okay."


	5. Chapter 5

**Title,** Song Bird  
><strong>Author,<strong> sarahbellesays  
><strong>Summary,<strong> The Doctor discovers a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls. (AU, sort of.)  
><strong>Author's Note,<strong> I seem to do most of my writing at just obscure times of night. Bah! Well, anyway, here's chapter five! I hope you like it~ Also, please review! It would mean a lot to me. I'm actually having quite a bit of fun writing this, so whether you review or not I'll keep on with it. :P Hope you enjoy~  
><strong>Disclaimer,<strong> I do not own Doctor Who.

* * *

><p>Wren pulled her scarf down from around her head as soon as the door was closed behind her. Her curious, seeking eyes peered around her. Compared to the underground she had been living in and the TARDIS she now resided, he imagined that a normal home was something of a novelty for her. The Doctor watched with hawk-eyes as Amy and Rory took her in. They all stood in the hall, tense and uncertain. The Doctor's fingers clenched into fists and then relaxed- clench, relax, clench, relax. He could feel each finger popping in its respective joint.<p>

Wren and the Ponds peered at each other carefully before his little song-bird turned her head to peer at him with an accusing stare. "Who're they?" She asked. The Doctor gestured with open palms and a forced smile.

"Amy, Rory, this is Wren. Wren, this is Amy and Rory. They're my friends."

Wren turned back around and fingered her scarf between her fingers. Amy came to kneel down in front of her so that they were eye-level. "Hi," Amy said, her voice soft. The Doctor felt badly about calling her unmaternal, now. With that simple word, he saw Wren relax her little wing bones and by the way Amy smiled, he imagined that Wren had unzipped her lips. But the smile on Amy's face faltered a second later and he realized it must have been because of the fangs.

"My, what.. what big teeth you have," Amy attempted weakly.

"I like your hair," Wren chirped.

And just like that, she wiggled her way into their unwilling and unconsenting hearts.

* * *

><p>"She's green," Rory observed later that evening. The Doctor sat beside him on the couch while Amy attempted to teach Wren to use the television. They'd eaten a hearty dinner (Amy had learned to cook) and Wren had had thirds. The warmth of the house was intoxicating and for the first time in a very, very long time the Doctor felt a little.. sleepy. It wasn't the true feeling of being tired, but rather just... full and warm and happy. Watching Wren and Amy, his resolve to leave her here was strengthened.<p>

"That she is." The Doctor replied.

They both hummed lightly.

"Do you think that you and Amy will..." The Doctor paused, uncertain. He glanced at his old friend and saw him watching his wife and Wren. His own eyes traveled to the pictures of them on top of the mantel. A wedding photo. A picture of some vacation or another. A photo of River, grinning and hunching her shoulders, peering over them at the camera- some unscheduled shot that she realized at the last minute was being taken. He tried to imagine what they were doing that day. A spotless blue sky was behind her, framing her. He swallowed thickly.

"Have another?" Rory supplied. The Doctor nodded

"We have River," he reminded him.

Foot, meet mouth. Mouth, meet foot. The Doctor tugged on the sleeves of his jacket, that warm sleepy feeling falling away as quickly as it came. "You didn't exactly get to raise her," he said.

"Good that," Rory joked, taking Amy's words and spitting them out without the Scottish lilt.

"You think so?"

"No," he admitted, turning his head so he could look at him. "But we did, in a way. When we were younger. It wasn't conventional, but she was always around. We didn't miss much. If that's all we can have, then so be it." He paused and shrugged, though the look pinching on his face told the Doctor something completely different. "Besides..."

"Besides what?" The Doctor pressed.

"Amy's been hoping," he dropped his voice low then, leaning a little closer. "That maybe one day you'll bring us along in the TARDIS again."

The Doctor raised his eyes to the figure of his best friend sitting across the room on the floor, cross-legged and the having her own little talk with Wren. Their voices were low but their laughter chimed every couple of seconds. Wren leaned against Amy, his little green hand stark against the flannel of the red-head's shirt. He shook his head and look down into his lap, taking a deep breath.

"So, where is she?" He asked, changing the subject gracelessly. "River, I mean."

"Spending some time back in jail," Rory said, stretching and leaning his arms across the back of the couch. "She said she'd be around for tea tomorrow. If you want to stay."

There was something comical about the way Rory said it. The way he spoke of his daughter, all grown up with little help from him, spending night after night in jail, being able to waltz in and out whenever she pleased or felt guilty enough to actually serve bits and pieces of her sentence.

"I shouldn't," he avoided. Every meeting was a little more painful. A little more out-of-order. A little further away. The less they saw each other, the more alive she was. The more time she had.

Rory nodded but didn't say anything.

"I can't have a child on the TARDIS," the Doctor said, voice low. "Can't.. can't have time pass like this. All... all slow. Correctly. Every Thursday afternoon and Sunday evening. I can't."

And then he was looking down at Wren looking up at him. Big eyes. Green skin. One little fang poking against her lip. She had strode over on legs that seemed to be getting longer every day and limbs that seemed to be gangly and lanky now beneath her dress. Her little green hands pressed to his knees, fingers spread, leaning heavily against him. Her toes stretching as high as they could go. "I'm tired," she said. "Can we go home?"

And just like that, his resolve crumbled.

* * *

><p>The Doctor found himself thinking about his family. A few weeks after the Amy and Rory visit when he promised promised promised to bring her back soon and he hadn't, the Doctor found himself thinking about his family. Wren dredged up those thoughts. Alone in the console room with the lights flashing, whirring, ticking- alone with his thoughts while Wren slept. He found himself thinking about his family.<p>

He had had a wife and even at all these years, she hadn't faded from his thoughts. There had been something magnetic about her that had nothing to do with beauty. She was willowy and small with the tiny chin of the well-bred and dark curls. She rarely laughed but often smiled. Her eyes caught the light in just the right way sometimes. He'd met her when he was young, naive. Before everything fell apart. Or, if he was being an adult, with adult vocabulary: before everything went to shit.

She would paint her nails but never keep them- after a few days he would observe her hands and find the paint chipped and her nails crack. She never wore make-up. She wore the bags under her eyes like prizes for studying too hard and reading until her eyes watered. Her hair was a mess, curls catching on her lip and tangling in her hair-brush; his fingers would get knotted in it when he tried to then them through. And yet, despite it all, he was magnetized. Utterly. Inexplicably. He would say something clever and she would snort and roll her eyes.

She was a woman before her time- a rebel to the Time Lord society. Brazen, excitable, filthy-mouthed. She swore and cussed and took for granted every second. Life was her's for the taking- not a gift, no moment more special than the next. She used out of date slang. She said 'git' as in, "Go on and git!" And the Doctor? Well, he would go on and git. He would git will the getting was good. The way she would talk, sometimes:

"It's like the sky is on fire," she whispered into his ear as they sat atop a hill just out of the edge of their home. The orange of the Gallifrey sky was the warm dusky kind. The grass tickled their legs. She held onto his hand, her bitten and broken nails painted chipped-off red digging into his skin. "Like the whole world is burning."

Then she would laugh and say, "Let's git."

His daughter never lived past her eighth birthday. She was so, so young. Just an infant. Eight years old. The Doctor barely remembered being eight. Barely even remembered that ages got so small. Wren was six, not much younger. Not that she reminded him of the daughter he used to have (not even the daughter that had been created from the scar on the back of his hand just one life-time ago). But thinking about her got him thinking about his family. Got him thinking about his wife and his daughter and the life he used to have. A life that seemed one-hundred life times away, instead of eleven.

He was on the verge of being depressed. He needed excitement beyond the daily thrill of wondering what new obscure trouble Wren would get herself into next. He needed a planet to explode, a damsel to save, a war to start and stop. But as the lights flickered on the center console and as he sat with his head in his hands, the world just went on chugging. Slowly. In the right order.

* * *

><p>The TARDIS was quiet.<p>

Too quiet.

The Doctor paused, straining his ears, hoping to catch the sound of Wren's little voice singing in her bedroom, or the tell-tale signs of her mucking about in the kitchen. But there was nothing. Slowly he moved from where he was fiddling about beneath the TARDIS floor, slinking up the steps and making his way towards Wren's bedroom. The door was half ajar and he pressed his finger-tips to it, swinging it further open. There was something a bit less quiet about this room- it held the presence of a person.

A little green person.

And there she was, kneeling on the floor with her colors and her pencils and her papers. Drawings were plastered to the wall- drawings of her mother, of him, of herself, of the TARDIS and of Amy and Rory and their fire-place. Drawings of the stars, crude as they were compared to the real thing. He opened his mouth to speak, to attempt to draw her out of the room. But with the sharp breath he took he could smell them: tears.

Her back was too him and her little wing bones were shaking with the effort to keep silent. The drawing in front of her was splattered with tear-drops and her little fist was clenched tightly around the pencil she was holding. The Doctor had been a father, once. A long time ago, but a father. He knew how to kiss scraps and scramble hair with his big palms. He knew how to scold and how to punish. He knew how to say sorry of oopsies and uh-ohs and oh-craps.

However, no parent- Time Lord or otherwise -knew what to do when their little girl sat, quiet in her bedroom, and cried those silent tears that screamed, 'I just can't stop!' There was no manual for Time Lords raising alien little girls who's mothers were gone gone gone dead and gone. There was no baby book for that. No support group. No help.

He supposed he felt almost jealous, though that was a terrible thing to admit. He felt a stab of pain in either one of his hearts. Had he not taken care of her? Did he not provide a sufficient source of entertainment, affection, adoration? Did he not clap appropriately when she sang to him in her piercing, unpleasant voice? Did he not take her out at night where no one would see her skin so that she could explore the world, bit by little itty bitty bit?

It hit the Doctor, roughly and unwelcome, just then. Wren had stopped asking about her mother, stopped staring at the phone, stopped insisting, not because she was waiting for him to tell her. Not because she was devious and keeping him clenched on his meat-hook of guilt. He has assumed that her lack of curiosity had to do with her coming out of her denial. He had assumed that when the time was right, when she was old enough, she would pin him with a stare and demand he admit the truth. He had assumed that he had been forgiven for his very first infraction without any words.

No. Wren had stopped asking because she starting realizing- through a child's eyes and ears. And this is where she came, in the bits of silence that the Doctor didn't pick up on. She came here to cry silently because she just couldn't stop. Alone.

He tried to imagine what her mother would have done if she had found her daughter crying over the remains of a picture she couldn't bring herself to finish. Would she have held her, hugged, her, patted her head? Would she have kissed her temple? Brought her sweeties? Snuck out into that dangerous world they lived in to bring her something that would make the pain go away?

"Want to pop in on Amy and Rory, kiddo?" He asked, because he was helpless. Because he had no idea how to fix his biggest oopsie.

Her little shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug as she swept up the remains of her broken heart.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title,** Song Bird  
><strong>Author,<strong> sarahbellesays  
><strong>Summary,<strong> The Doctor discovers a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls. (AU, sort of.)  
><strong>Author's Note, <strong>I actually lost this whole chapter when my computer restarted while i got distracted talking to my landlord. But, I re-wrote it! Not to its former glory but I did try. So I hope you enjoy it and please don't forget to review! though i've gotten a few more story alerts and that tickles me pink. (: enjoy!  
><strong>Disclaimer,<strong> I do not own Doctor Who.

* * *

><p>The spring turned to summer and summer faded into fall, each day one right after the other just as they were supposed to. The Doctor had to start keeping a calendar. Amy and Rory had given it to him cheerily, telling him he would probably need it now he was taking the slow path. The slow path. Him! The world outside the TARDIS was dying in that metaphorical autumn weather sense. Sometime in the middle of summer, Wren had turned seven. She had woken up in a full-tilt bat-shit crazy mood, running and jumping and squealing. She held the calendar in her hands as she shoved it into his face, chirping, "It's my birthday!"<p>

The Doctor wondered how she knew the concept or how she knew what date to circle in big red marker while the rest were ticked off, one by one, with big black X's through their squares. But there it was, that circle, big and red and demanding attention. He imagined that her mother had some way of counting the days, some way of giving Wren an Earth Birthday. Perhaps it was the anniversary of the day they had escaped their planet that her mother had given a name. Whatever it was, it was there and screaming in his face in red ink.

They celebrated with cake at Amy and Rory's. Amy bought her a pretty dress that the Doctor knew Wren was going to tear up or rip in some way. Rory gave her a ride in his car, top up of course. And the Doctor? Well, he watched with a smile big enough to rip his face in two.

After her birthday excitement, Wren was content for a while. The Doctor began to take her places, little by little by little: at night, to Spain. To Greece. Italy. Romania. The Arctic Circle. Anywhere with shadows and pretty sights to see. Then the pranks started.

Wren was always one for pranks. Little things. Taking his tools, hiding his braces, tying his shoe-laces together. As the end of October was drawing in, however, she had started getting bigger. Badder. It was always after he left, too. During the day he spent most of his time with her, leaving only when completely necessary. He would sit in the console room and she would play at his feet, ignore him. They would sit together in her bedroom and watch a movie on the screen against the wall the TARDIS provided: movies with blood and guts and gore and she would laugh and laugh and laugh and say, "Look how fake!" At night time, though, when she was tucked safely into bed and her door locked (he did it now more to make himself feel better rather than any real need to keep her locked away), the Doctor would pop out for a bit of saving planets and rescuing damsels.

A bit of rumpus with Virginia Woolf.

He would return to a still sleeping Wren, but somewhere in the middle of the night there would be some sort of disaster caused by a little green criminal. Every bathtub in the TARDIS overflowing with water. Thumb-tacks in all his shoes. His favorite bow-tie flushed down the toilet. His other bow-ties knotted together and strung across the TARDIS console like holiday tinsel.

"She's bored," Amy said one night while he watched from the kitchen as Rory taught Wren some sort of card game that included swearing and physical violence has part of the key rules. He was helping Amy cook supper and by helping, he was really only standing in her way while she tried to slice the red skinned potatoes.

"Bored! She can't be bored. I'm plenty fun. I'm plenty entertaining." The Doctor protested, crossing his arms.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Get her a pet," she suggested.

"No," he said instantly, spinning so that he faced her. He leaned against the counter, lowering his voice. "I can't have a.. a dog or a cat on the TARDIS. She's already enough."

"You come over here lamenting parenthood and then don't take my advice," Amy snapped.

"I'm not," he said, pointing one finger at her nose. "I am not, not, not her parent. As soon as I find someplace suitable for her, that's where she'll go. Then I can be rewarded for my good deeds by out of order days and time-travel again."

Amy shot him a look around her veil of hair. "I see the way you look at her."

"Like how?" He asked, squinting his eyes and dropping his hand.

"Like you want to throttle her and hug her all at once." She grinned, eyes bright. "Welcome to parenthood, Pops."

The next day, the Doctor let Amy take him out to the pet store. It was almost like old times again: him and Amy, walking down the street. She held onto his arm while they walked, talking and laughing. She smelled like shampoo and that earthy, human female scent that he had admired so much when it was just the two of them in the TARDIS. Before Rory. Before River. When it was just them, best friends, destroying peoples lives as they knew them before building them right back up. He began to think about what Rory said, about Amy putting off children in the hopes that he would one day drop down on their door step and pick them right back up again.

The smile on her face when she looked at him stung his heart a little more.

At the pet store they by-passed the bigger pets like cats and dogs and headed straight for the little ones in glass cages. There were guinea pigs and rabbits and mice and gerbils and little fluffy hamsters. Each one with a cute little button nose. Each one peering up through the glass- pick me, pick me!

"Here was my first pet," Amy said fondly, pointing to one of the cages, bending at the waist to peer inside. The Doctor wrinkled his nose. On the inside were rats. Little big-eared, snake tailed rats. "Small, you can keep them in a cage and smart. You can teach them tricks and everything. Like little dogs."

"I don't know," the Doctor hedged, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. Rats didn't seem like a little girl pet. The fact that Amy had once had them confused him too much, already. "I don't even know what she likes."

"Do you want the rest of your bow ties flushed?" She asked over her shoulder.

"Rats it is!" He agreed quickly, clapping his hands together.

* * *

><p>Wren peered at him carefully as he carried the cage (covered with a blanket) into her bedroom. "What's that?" She asked, voice full of distrust. He shot her a look as he settled the cage on top of her low dresser. He squatted beside it and gestured for her to come nearer. She did, carefully, picking her way through a sea of forgotten toys and colors and pencils. When she stood right beside him, her hand on his knee, he pulled the blanket off the top of the cage and let it flutter to the ground.<p>

She peered inside and the rat peered out. It was large and fat with a black hood and cape down it's back, the rest of its body white. It pressed its tiny little paws against the bars of the cage, it's nose sniffing, it's buck teeth clicking and rubbing together. The Doctor watched Wren for her reaction but she seemed rather despondent. Her teeth chewed on her lower lip and her fingers reached out to thumb the bars. They made a metallic rattling and the rat kicked up litter.

"Is it for supper?" She asked, glancing at him.

The Doctor blanched and tried not to think about how many meals Wren must have eaten that looked a lot like her new friend. "No," he said- a little too loudly. She flinched. He brought his hand down to pat her back, her little bony shoulder. He could feel the ridges in her spine through the dress. "No," he repeated, softer. "It's a pet. To keep your company. To play with."

"It's a rat," she said, voice dull.

"Well, yes," he said. "Amy had a pet rat when she was your age."

The Doctor reached to click open the bars of the cage. He reached in and scooped the fat thing out of its litter. He held it, cradled in his palms, so that she could examine it. Wren reached out one small cupped hand to stroke down the rat's spine. It snuffled, but stayed still. Slowly, a little smile peeled across her lips.

"He's soft," she said. The Doctor unzipped his own smile.

"What're you going to name him?" He asked. "Will I blush?"

Wren laughed and took the rat from his hands. It was almost big enough against her to be totted around like a baby doll toy. She had to hold it against her chest. He clambered up her dress and settled on her shoulder, snuffling against her hair, into her ear, against her neck. She laughed and squirmed and grinned her big, predatory grin. "I want to name him Ellie," she said.

"That's a girl's name," he protested.

"It's my mom's name."

They leveled each other very heavy looks just then. The Doctor was the first to break away, turning his eyes onto Ellie the rat instead, who was held so delicately against Wren's chest. "Ellie it is, then." He reached out a hand and scratched behind the rat's ears while all the words Wren left unsaid beat against the side of his head with the force of her stare.

* * *

><p>The problem with Wren and Ellie was, she rarely kept him in his cage. Nope, she carried him around everywhere. She let him run loose. He was all over her bedroom and it got to the point where the Doctor was having to watch his feet more than usual when he walked. One evening he caught Ellie snuffling around in his underwear drawer and when he yelped in surprise, Wren came running in, scolding him about scaring the rat. She carried him off like a baby and the fat contented thing just wiggled his whiskers. The smug bastard.<p>

"Do you think you could keep Ellie in his cage tonight, Wren?" The Doctor asked as he poked his head around the corner of her bedroom where she was dipping his little paws in paint and letting him scurry across a large piece of paper she had splayed out. She glanced up at him with a wrinkle to her nose.

"He likes sleeping with me," she protested. "He gets sad, locked up all the time."

The Doctor sensed a metaphor brewing.

"He's pooping everywhere," the Doctor pointed out.

"I clean it up." She looked at him again, repeating the process of dipping Ellie in paint and watching him scamper across the paper.

"It's not hygienic." He paused at the scrunched up look on her face. "Clean. It's not clean."

"No," she answered. Stiffly. Certainly. With resolve.

The Doctor felt as if he had just been slapped in the face. He opened and closed his mouth several times before stepping fully into the room. "What do you mean, no?"

"No." Wren looked back up at him again and set Ellie on her lap. His still-wet paws marked up her pink dress. The Doctor did the mouth open mouth closed thing again before running his palm through his hair, pushing his floppy fringe back out of his face.

"I'm the adult," he said. "And you're the kid. So, please. Put Ellie away and go wash up."

"No."

"Okay, then," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. Wren went right on ignoring him and he went right on feeling useless.

Now, he thought that taking Ellie away was the right thing to do. Big oopsie. Big mistake. Big oh-crap and there was no amount of cake or spaggettios or chocolate and peanut butter ice cream that was going to fix that. When Wren was asleep, the Doctor plucked Ellie out from beneath her bedsheets, ushered him into his little cage, and hauled him out of her bedroom. He set the little fellow up with some fresh food and water and tucked him away in one of the lesser used rooms. Just for now. Just to get his point across.

She awoke some time in the middle of the night and stomped out into the console room. "Give him back," she said. "Give him back now."

"When you learn to behave," he said. "Then you can have him back." He didn't look up from the fiddling he was doing on the center console, his screw driver buzzing full tilt.

He expected her to shout. Or, maybe, he even expected her to tee-hee her way out of trouble, almost. He didn't hear much and so he turned to look over his shoulder, pausing in his word to watch her. She stood silent at the top of the stairs. She wore a night dress, one that came all the way down to her ankles. Her little green fist was tightened around the railing. Her eyes bore holes into his skull. He quirked a brow at her.

"That it?" He asked. "Go back to bed, Wren."

"You can't lock him up like you lock me up," she said. Big words for a seven year old. Loaded words. Words that clench his heart in a way he was unsure of.

"I don't lock you up," he protested weakly. "You know you can't go out."

"I need him."

Her voice broke and her lip trembled and that was all it took for the tears to fall from her eyes, sliding down her cheeks, catching on the little trembling lip that started it all. Her tiny shoulders heaved as she tried to control the monstrous sobs that were beginning to be let loose. Crying silently because that was how she was raised. In a silent life. Quiet. Secret. The Doctor felt his breath tug from his lungs as he carefully turned all the way to face her. His little song bird. His little back-talking song bird. Just a small girl attempting to make sense of the world she was thrust into on such short notice. The next thing he knew she was running down the steps and throwing her arms around his legs, sobbing into his thigh, blubbering out little apologies.

He bent double over and wrapped his arms around her, never ever planning on letting go.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title,** Song Bird  
><strong>Author,<strong> sarahbellesays  
><strong>Summary,<strong> The Doctor discovers a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls. (AU, sort of.)  
><strong>Author's Note, <strong>Each of these chapters are all turning out to be around 2,500 words a piece when I'm all done with them, so they do come out rather quickly. I hope no one minds? If you like longer chapters, I can do that, or I can stick to these lengths! I know that the thing says 11 & River and so far there has been no River- but never fear! River is here! It is a 11 & River story, deep down. It will be. It'll get to it. I hope those of you who are sticking around enjoy it! And those of you just joining us, welcome! Please review!  
><strong>Disclaimer,<strong> I do not own Doctor Who.

* * *

><p>"What's Christmas?"<p>

This question came while they were out playing in the bit of snow that had accumulated, safe in the dark of a bigger park that the Doctor had found for her. According to the calendar, the aforementioned date was just over a week away. The Doctor rubbed his hands together, blowing on them, letting his breath blow into his cupped palms. He watched her swing, though this time she stood with her feet on the seat, her fingers twisted around the chains.

"It's a holiday," he answered. "You get together, give presents, eat turkey."

"How come?"

"Long story."

"Tell me." She leaned further back. She'd changed from wearing dressing every day to trousers. He'd managed to coax her into some shoes this time. The air outside was too cold without them. He was without religion. He'd lived long enough to no longer need it. To no longer believe. Even if he did have religion, it would be without the human religion that had them all tangled in wars and terrors. His hands found his pockets as he watched her, head falling back with each swing. Her hips pivoted back and forth to keep her money.

"We've got time," she added.

So he told her. The abridge version with plenty of sarcastic comments thrown in. He dipped his voice in disbelief so palpable that it seemed to drip from his jaws with each word. He told her of Genesis as told in the Bible. He skipped over the flood and the boring bits, right up to the baby Jesus and the virgin Mary. He explained quickly that the word for 'virgin' really translated to 'young girl', and she looked at him with glazed-over eyes, not even knowing what 'virgin' actually meant. He coughed, turned red, and carried on, explaining how that baby would go to grow up and be the supposed son of God, and to, supposedly, die for their sins. Wren listened, pivoting- back and forth, back and forth. She made noncommittal responses at appropriate times but other than that, sounded rather disinterested in the whole ordeal. When he was finished, his last words hung in the air- the complete history of Christianity compressed into one short story.

A very adult look crossed her very young face. She seemed to think very hard on what he said- on whether she believed it to be true or not. The Doctor wondered if he wanted her to. If it was true then she had everything to lose. Him, he was going to live forever as far as he knew. He wasn't even eligible for Heaven. Or Hell. He swung himself up on the balls of his feet and back down again. Wren leaped off the swing and landed in a drift of snow. It fluffed up around her and she laughed.

"Do we celebrate Christmas?" She asked, throwing a hand full of fluffy white snow at him. It hit the wool of his trousers and stuck.

"Of course," he said. "Excuse for turkey and presents. Why wouldn't we?"

"Even if we don't believe in Jesus and God and stuff?" She threw up another hand full of snow. It was the soft, loose kind. It fell around her and the sound was like salt hitting the kitchen floor.

"You don't have to believe in God to come together with your family," the Doctor said quietly. "Or to be a good person, for that matter."

Wren seemed to consider this. She fell back, making a snow angel. She made foot prints in it as she stood to look at it. Her hands stuffed themselves in her pockets and the Doctor came to stand by her side, looking down at the figure of the snow angel. He supposed, if he were thinking religiously, it was a good metaphor. No matter the skin or the teeth or the way her knobby spine was getting knobbier by the day- her soul was still white. A little white angel imprinted in the snow. The Doctor reached one hand out and brushed his fingers through her hair, pushing it back behind her ears. She leaned against him and they stood in that companionable silence.

"Let's go home," she said, her voice a soft murmur.

"Sure thing, kiddo," the Doctor answered. "Sure thing."

* * *

><p>"Hey, kid!" Amy greeted excitedly as she opened the door that Christmas eve, sporting a decidedly hideous sweater with reindeer on the front. Her hair was swept up in a pony-tail, her round cheeks pinched with a grin. Her eyes fluttered up from Wren to the Doctor and smirked playfully. "And you, I suppose." She stepped back and allowed them in, ushering them off the lighted front step where stragglers might catch sight of Wren's florescent green skin.<p>

In her arms, she carried Ellie's cage. "It's Christmas," she had said to the Doctor when he'd asked why. "You're supposed to be with your family. Ellie's part of our family."

He was so tickled pink by the idea of 'family' that he let it slide and allowed her to tote Ellie over to Amy and Rory's. So there they were, Wren already shedding her jacket and setting up Ellie's cage on the coffee table, opening it up and digging him out. The Doctor had to give it to the little guy- he was certainly patient. Wren had started living him in his cage at night, but she still pulled him out and let him ride around on her shoulder wherever she went. She was attached.

"This is Ellie!" She introduced to Rory (who was sitting on the couch and watching with a decidedly disgusted look on his face). She clambered up to sit beside him, holding Ellie in her small palms and shoving him into his face. He wrinkled his nose and pushed her little wrists back towards her body, smiling this tight-lipped smile.

"Adorable," he said.

"Why don't you and Ellie help me in the kitchen?" Amy suggested, taking Wren's hand and leading her through the dining room. The Doctor watched from the door way of the living room, chewing his lower lip. Slowly, he began to relax. Slowly, he began to feel that warm feeling that accompanied being in the Pond-Williams household. He slunk over to the couch and sat down. Rory was wearing an equally appalling Christmas sweater. The Doctor quirked an eye brow at him.

"Don't say a word," he said, rolling his eyes. "Besides, Amy bought one for you too."

"Is... ah, is..." the Doctor tried to figured out how to word his question. It was a simple enough question, after all, no need for real thought. He gestured instead towards the mantle. Another picture had appeared since his last visit with Wren. This one was of all three of them together in hideous sweaters, grinning away. Like the happiest family in the world. And why shouldn't they be?

Rory lifted his gaze to the top of the fire place. "Should be here any minute, actually."

The doorbell rang. "RORY!" Amy howled from the kitchen. "GET THAT!"

Rory rolled his had back against the couch before pushing himself up. "I do love her," he said, as if he had to defend himself. The Doctor raised his brows but said nothing. There was no one more suited for one another than Amy and Rory. Not even when he missed her did the Doctor so much as think of taking her away from him. Not even for a moment. At least, not after he scolded himself thoroughly. He watched as Rory disappeared into the main hall with the steps. He tried to imagine River on the other side of the front door. Tried to imagine how she looked- older, younger? Mussed from sneaking out of jail?

Tired, worn? Exhausted? Or maybe vibrant, full of that life he knew her to have. She would know him less and he would know her more. Somewhere they would find a happy medium. Somewhen.

"Hello, sweetie."

And it was that- that single phrase, uttered over and over and without regret and remorse or shame. The Doctor stood from the couch and spun to greet her. It was true joy he felt at seeing her- whether or not it was love the way she felt for him or not he didn't believe he would ever be able to say. His future. Her past. He felt a smile come over his face, nonetheless. Her hair was loose, a wild array of blond curls. She wore the very same kind of Christmas sweater, loose on her frame, billowing her in folds of itchy, ugly fabric. "River," he greeted. And then, before he got too comfortable, there was still some match-making to do. Still some little green girl's to introduce. "Wren!" He called.

River's face was comical. "Wren?" She asked. Her eyes narrowed- curious, suspicious. Jealous. The Doctor grinned.

"Yeah?" His little song-bird cheeped. River turned and looked down. He wished he could have seen the expression on her face. He moved so that he could at least watch Wren take in the new guest. Wren observed her the very same way she observed the Ponds upon their first meeting. She held Ellie tightly in her little grasp.

"River, Wren, Wren, River," he introduced quickly, dropping onto the couch along with Rory.

"I didn't know you travel with children, these days, Doctor," River jabbed, coming around to perch herself on the edge of the couch, closest to him. He shifted. Wren came around the front of the couch, eyeing River and only flickering her eyes away long enough to pin him with a firm stare.

"Can I go now?" She asked, petulant. He shouldn't let her get away with it, but he did. He waved a dismissive hand and she spun back around, escaping into the kitchen to continue on with someone she did like.

That ended up being much less of a dramatic flare than he had thought. Hoped. Dreamed.

"He doesn't," Rory said, lifting his gaze to his daughters before letting his eyes travel back to the television. "Travel, that is."

River quirked a brow. "Settling down, are we?"

"Hardly," the Doctor grumbled. "Just doing a good deed until... you know, she has somewhere else to go. She's orphaned, you know. And her planet is in the middle of war."

River hummed and nodded her head, tapping her black-painted nails against her equally black trousers. The kind that hugged her skin. The kind that reminded him she was a woman.

"He's been saying that since May, mind you, so..." Rory trailed off.

"Thanks," the Doctor grumbled. "You're a big help."

* * *

><p>"So you've just been taking care of her?" River asked quietly, her voice low, the only light in the living room that of the ill-decorated Christmas tree in the corner. The lights illuminated her face, finding each definition, each line, each worried crease. Wren was fast asleep on the couch between them, face pressed against the Doctor's thigh, her legs curled up beneath her. He tucked the quilt he had draped over her from the back of the couch a little tighter around her bony shoulders. On the mantel, the clock struck midnight.<p>

Merry Christmas, kiddo, he thought as he avoided looking at River, avoided answering her questions. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her palming the glass of wine she'd poured herself. He ran his thumb along his lower lip and let out a soft sigh.

"Yeah, I have," he replied, finally. He brushed his hand along the top of her hair, her soft hair smoothing back from her forehead. She never let him do it while she was awake. Always squirmed out from under his palm, grumbling and griping. "It's really the least I could do."

River laughed a quiet laugh around the rim of her glass as she tipped it back, swallowing it thickly. "And here I thought you'd never find a woman to settle you," she teased in that way that insisted she knew something about his future that he didn't quite know yet. The Doctor snorted.

"Yeah, well," he mumbled.

"Oh, don't say it's only temporary," River scolded softly. "You're lying through your teeth. She's sunk her cute little fangs into you deep and she's not letting go." Her smile was shadowed, but he could tell it was there by the way the light danced across her face. She reached for the wine bottle and held it aloft as if considering pouring herself another glass. Thinking better of it, she set her glass on the coffee table and settled back against the couch with the bottle in her lap.

"Well, it was only going to be temporary," he admitted. "I did have every intention of taking her somewhere else."

"But?" River prompted when he fell silent.

"But," he hedged. "But, I don't know. Days started making sense. I bought a calendar. She had a birthday."

They fell silent after that. The quiet in the house was pressing. He watched her while she drank from the bottle of wine and for whatever reason, that got him thinking about family again. Not his family. But this one. This messed up, screwed up, backwards family. With a mother and father younger than their daughter- with him, stepping in, mucking everything up. He started thinking about that photo on the mantel of River, looking over her shoulder.

"Where did you get that photo taken?" He asked, nodding his had over the dead and gone fire place.

River glanced towards it, though he suspected she knew which one.

"Mum took it," she said. The way she called Amy 'Mum', with her voice so small- she was younger. Younger than he'd ever seen her, but then again that was each and every time. His hearts hammered somewhere in his chest, letting him know that this was just another one of Wren's big black X's on the calendar. River was nothing but a tick mark, tick-tocking with each clock-tick further and further away.

"We were just... out. In the park. Walking. I didn't even know she had a camera." Her voice wavered. "Said she was catching up on everything she missed. She has a whole album in her bedroom."

_You'll be gone soon_, he wanted to say- so, so desperately wanted to say. _Let her take them all she wants!_

Instead, he hummed and nodded quietly and all the things he longed to say were left desperately unsaid.

"Happy Christmas, River," he said, instead.

"Happy Christmas, Doctor," she echoed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Title,** Song Bird  
><strong>Author,<strong> sarahbellesays  
><strong>Summary,<strong> The Doctor discovers a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls. (AU, sort of.)  
><strong>Author's Note, <strong>This one is a little shorter, but i've been having a very rough few days. I hope you enjoy it, nonetheless! Please enjoy~ And don't forget to review!  
><strong>Disclaimer,<strong> I do not own Doctor Who.

* * *

><p>They'd been staring for nearly an hour. Across from one another, the kitchen island in between them- she on a stool, him leaning with his elbows pressed to the counter top. It was like this, some days, when there was little to do and Wren didn't feel like rewatching the movies he had gotten for her or playing with her toys or pulling the harmless pranks she had gone back to after getting Ellie. Days where he would be doing something, anything- and she would crawl up and plop down and stare. And she would stare hard. And the Doctor? Well, he'd stare back.<p>

So, they were standing in the kitchen, Wren on her stool, him leaning over the counter. They were standing in the kitchen where he had not shipped Wren off somewhere else. In the kitchen where Wren had turned eight a month back. In the kitchen where her hair was falling around her shoulders, hitting her collar bones. Where her limbs had started to sprout and slim and grow lanky and long. She'd gone back to dresses and started combing her hair.

The Doctor looked into her big, brown eyes- they flickered in their sockets, whites rolling around, irises making it clear what she was looking at. They darted to and fro, mapping out his face. He feels his own start to burn. This was their third staring contest. They'd said nothing since she came into the kitchen and plopped down and stared. Hard. She'd won two out of three, so far, with a look of patience on her face that bordered on, well, boredom. But she didn't move, didn't make a peep. Not even a single tee-hee. The first round, he let her win. She was eight, after all. He'd blinked big. He'd blinked huge.

Wren had giggled, and fluttered her eyes then settled her elbows on the counter, set her chin in her hands, and started over. The second round had lasted longer than the Doctor was willing to stare- he'd blinked and she'd laughed and slapped the table. This time, though, he was determined. He was going to win.

He noticed it, then, suddenly- she shifted, unblinking, and the light from over head cast across her face at a different angle, only so miniscule that he barely noticed it. A flash of something slid across her unblinking eye side-ways- thin and nearly invisible.

"Not fair!" He cried, blinking. Losing. But she cheated! "You have a second eye-lid!"

"I want ice-cream," she said, blinking, finally. Fluttering those eyes that could break a heart or two. "Please," she added. The Doctor scowled and pulled it out of the freezer, handing her the tub and a spoon. He had one for himself, too.

"Here you go, you little con-artist," he said. Wren smiled. She smiled big. She smiled huge.

* * *

><p>But her big huge smiles didn't last.<p>

"What're you watching?" He asked good natured as he poked his head into her bedroom. She had her feet up on the wall and was watching a movie facing upside-down off the edge of her bed. Her hands were petting Ellie who was snuggled on her stomach, his little whiskers twitching, his little ears flickering. The screen was up just loud enough to be disruptive in every other conceivable part of the TARDIS and he thought about telling her to turn it down.

"George Hearn," she said. "Angela Lansbury. Sweeney Todd. 1979."

The Doctor peeked his head around the corner, watching the recorded stage version of the play. Someone got their neck sliced with fake blood and dropped down a trap door. There was singing and he rose his brows in a curious quirk. She watched strange things, lately. There was Sweeney Todd- old and new versions -and really anything with a lot of blood and mayhem. Anything that normal little girls would find adult or depressing, she popped them on and stared at the screen without blinking an eye (though her second eyelids were a different story). He hummed and nodded.

"Don't you want to watch something less..." He circled his hand in the air. "Gross?"

"If only angels could prevail, we'd be the way we were," she sang, ignoring him.

"I'll take that as a no." He stepped into the room and came to sit at her side, plopping down and crossing his ankles. He reached for the remote, shutting it off.

"Hey!" She snapped.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" He asked. He could only assume this was some far cry for attention. For help. Little girls didn't watch these movies. Little girls watched asinine cartoons. She sat up, careful to keep hold of Ellie, and reached for the remote. She turned the movie back on and pressed the volume button until the sound was so loud that he could feel his skull pressing in on itself.

Pulling his sonic screw driver from his pocket, he pointed it at the screen- it whirred and the screen flickered off, taking the sound with it. "Wren?" He nudged her shoulder with his own. She looked down at her lap, stroking her fingers along his spine. Her little shoulders hunched and her eye brows scrunched in on themselves. Her chin dropped so close to her chest that her hair swung forward like a veil, hiding her from him. Her silence went on and he was almost prepared to give up- almost ready to hang up the towel and continue on being Universe's Most Incompetent Parent.

"I miss the sunshine," she said. Her voice was so soft, he had to strain to hear it. He swallowed thickly when he did, twisting his fingers in his lap. She lifted her face to look at him with a dead-panned expression. She reached for the remote again and turned on the movie. The sound beat around them, drowning out all the things he couldn't say, wanted to say, wouldn't say, and all the excuse she refused to listen to.

Truth be told, he didn't know she'd ever experienced sunshine. Through the bits and pieces of her life before him that he had picked up, he still couldn't put together a clear-cut image of how she had lived. Every new little slip of information was just another piece of the puzzle- and it was starting to look like there were no corner pieces to start with. Had they found a way to sneak in and out, to spend long afternoons in abandoned clearings- had the forest he found her in been her playground? Had her mother caught squirrels and rats to eat for supper? He didn't know much about Wren or her life before him- he only knew that he was going to mess up about fifty-seven more times before he got one thing right.

He raised one hand as if to pat her shoulder comfortingly or to stroke along her back. Instead, he let it fall back into his lap. They stayed like that, quiet, silent, watching the movie and the stage play blood, the stage lights on the screen the closest thing to sunlight his little song bird was going to get.

* * *

><p>"This is gonna be great," the Doctor enthused as he sat on the top of their suitcase, attempting to get the bulging thing closed. "Brilliant. Fantastic. Cool."<p>

Wren was watching him skeptically, fighting back a yawn and attempting not to look too terribly exhausted. He had planned it all out. It was somewhere around six in the morning. They had a long day ahead of them- a normal day. A slow-path day. A day without the TARDIS, without zipping wherever they wanted. A day where they would get in a car and drive and drive and drive and piss and moan about pee-stops. "I don't understand," she whined softly, standing in her trainers and jacket, looking about as furious at him as he would imagine she could be, being woken up so early.

No warning. No teases. This was going to be a total surprise and the Doctor was rather proud of it, himself. He grinned as he lifted the suitcase up. "That's alright," he hummed. "You will."

They set up Ellie with extra food and water to last him a few days. Wren spent nearly twenty minutes saying goodbye, sniffling but not crying. The sun was still barely up over the horizon and the light was casting grey across the sky. There was no one around outside the TARDIS and they were settled just outside of the Pond's house. They were all waiting- Amy and Rory and River, all piled into a small jeep that the Doctor had begged Rory to rent for the weekend. Wren stared on with confusion and a mild excitement slithering across her face.

"Where're we going?" She asked as she darted across the street, reveling in the short moments she would be outside not sheathed in total darkness.

"Camping, kiddo," Amy said, scrambling her hair with her little hand. Rory took the suitcase from the Doctor and set it in the back before slamming closed the trunk.

"Where?" Wren asked, confused.

"We're gonna go where no one can see us," the Doctor said, hoisting her up in his arms, swinging her arm. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she was laughing, squealing, pressing her face into his cheek. His heart soared at the sound. Her flat little tee-hee's becoming more and more tethered. This would do her good. Him good. Real honest to God human silliness- like camping. "And you can spend all the time in the sunshine you like."

Wren pulled back to look at him, staring him in the face. Her eyes wavered and she sucked in sharp breaths, her lips twisting over those big sharp teeth. Then, like a present, she unzipped her smile and squeezed her arms tighter around his neck. "Thanks, Dad," she said.

She had his heart on a string.

* * *

><p>"Lookit it all!" She cried out, more excited about the scenery on their long drive than the prospect of spending three whole days in solitude and sunshine out in the country. She sat in the back in the middle, between the Doctor and River, darting back and forth between who's lap she was laying across the peer out the windows. The Doctor concentrated on her more than anything- if he didn't, he would be hyperly aware of River. Rory drove and Amy sat up front, feet on the dash, laughing, singing. Her window was open and the hot air whipped all their hair.<p>

The drive was several long, boring hours. But Wren had never been more excited. Her face lit up like fire works every time she saw something new- hay bails, a pond, cows, horses. They were all doing this for her- a family trying to bring the best out of a terrible, cruel world. No one was complaining for the time away, though- no other people, no jobs, no TARDIS repairs. The Doctor, while anxious, found himself to be quite enjoying the prospect of three days in the wilderness. It reminded him of his youth and the rustic planets he used to often visit.

The thing about Amy's time was that most camping spots weren't really camping spots. The grounds were paved for RVs to back in, the woods were thinned, safe. There were bathrooms and shower houses within walking distance. There were people, too. That was why they needed to go so far out of the way, there would only be a two percent chance of anyone passing by. As they rounded across the lesser-used roads, deeper into trees, along mountain roads, the shape of the world began to change.

They took a worn road off the main one, trailing through trees and along the heavy dips of the mountain bases. Wren was getting antsy and excited. The whole car was feeding off her energy, it felt like. Even River- usually so demure and defined in herself -had her window rolled down to taste the hot summer air, fingers spread as her hand hung out the side of the car. The road opened up along a lake, surrounded by dirt and trees.

"We're here, we're here, we're here!" Wren chanted over and over and over as Rory pulled into a small alcove of trees and stopped the car. The Doctor opened the door and she scooted over his lap to step out into the light.

Into the sunshine.


	9. Chapter 9

**Title,** Song Bird  
><strong>Author,<strong> sarahbellesays  
><strong>Summary,<strong> The Doctor discovers a strange little girl in a world not fit for strange little girls. (AU, sort of.)  
><strong>Author's Note, <strong>A longer chapter! Hooray! With camping! And more River! And he actually talks to her! And more Wren! YAY! I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please don't forget to review!  
><strong>Disclaimer,<strong> I do not own Doctor Who.

* * *

><p>After Rory and River set up the tents (while Amy and the Doctor sat on the open back of the jeep, useless), Wren begged Rory off to go down to the lake. River went with and the Doctor felt a little weight lift from his chest when it was just him and Amy, sitting in the back of the jeep, watching them all down in the sunshine. Their legs swung in a shaky rhythm, their shoulders brushing just slightly. The warm summer air clung to the curve of their throats, were sweat was beginning to gather in the dip of their collar bones.<p>

"Can't believe you planned all this," Amy said after a few long moments of silence, stretching her arms out in front of her and popping the bones in her fingers and wrists. She proceeded to jerk her chin to either side sharply, cracking her neck. The Doctor winced and hunched his shoulders. "Just so she could play in the sun," his former companion went on, her lips twisting upwards. Her smile was secretive. Her shoulder nudge his. "And she called you Dad."

"Emotional oversight," the Doctor commented. Amy snorted and he didn't really blame her.

"She's eight," she said, raising one eye brow at him. "She doesn't have emotional oversights. I don't even think she says what she doesn't mean."

"That's from spending too much time with you," he said, shaking one long finger towards her nose. All Amy did was laugh at him, her thick Scottish laugh that had all the boys chasing after her. His smile felt almost foreign on his own lips- as if it was disastrous for him to be here, in such a human place doing such human activities like camping. As if he were allowing the whole of the universe to crumble just to see the smile dart back across Wren's face.

It wasn't altogether untrue.

"You really are settling down," Amy goaded. "Lookit you. Here we are, having a nice family camping trip." She paused, her expression seeming to draw in on itself. "It means a lot you invited River along. To me and Rory. And to River."

The Doctor lifted his gaze from his companion back down towards the lake where Wren was almost glowing in the sunlight. Her green was even greener in the natural lighting. It looked almost translucent, as if she weren't exactly real. "She's been in Stormcage since Christmas," he said by way of dismissal.

Amy hummed and he hummed back.

"I had a daughter, once," he said, suddenly. It came out, completely without his consent or knowledge. His tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth as Amy turned to look at him, brows raised. "Her name was..." He paused, breath catching. The word in English would butcher the beauty of her Gallifreyan name. He twisted his lips the way Wren would sometimes while she was chewing over a thought. His hands flexed against his thighs. "Anyway," her breathed. "She died. Along with her mother. They all did." Amy's eyes were trained on him, unmoving, wide, unblinking. Her flush in her cheeks and the way her pulse moved in her throat told him more than he needed to know. He drew one hand to his face, drawing his thumb across his lower lip.

"Then there was Jenny," he said. Her name came out like a puff of dust after shaking off a piece of fabric that sat up too long in some long forgotten attic. "Not really my daughter- genetically, I suppose, yeah. Grown out of a cell on my hand." He waved his upturned palm. The scar had melted away with his old body. "That was a life-time ago. She was a soldier. I was going to take her with me. Show her new worlds. My friend, Donna, she..." He rubbed his hand along his face. Once talking, the words came unbidden. "I thought that the hole left where my family had once been was never going to heal. Never going to close."

He paused, rubbing his hands together as his elbows rested on his thighs. "Donna, she said, you're wrong. And I looked at Jenny and I thought, maybe I am." His teeth captured his lower lip, chewing anxiously. "Jenny's gone, now. And I wasn't wrong."

"And Wren?" Amy asked quietly. Her little palm came to rest on his arm, fingers clutching the fabric of his jacket.

"I've never hoped to be wrong so hard in my life." His lips twitched at the sound of Amy's laughter. She pressed in closer, looping her arm around his neck and dragging him into a head-lock-hug.

"Statistically, I think you're about due," she said.

* * *

><p>Wren was soaking wet by the time the Doctor relieved River and Rory of watching her. She was wading in the lake, close to the shore, attempting to catch the fish that swam around her legs and nibbled at her toes. Rory headed back up to sit with Amy. River hung back, hesitating, watching him in a way that he couldn't ignore. The intensity of her gaze was startling, if not off-putting.<p>

"Okay, I'll bite," he said lightly, glancing her way. "What is it?"

Her smile was tense. "The last time we were at a lake-"

"Stop right there," he chirped. "Whenever that was, I haven't gotten there yet. Try not to spoil it for me."

Her smile was tense.

Their time lines, working backwards, sidewards, inwards, outwards- anyway but forwards -was almost an exhausting, daunting task to keep up with. Her lips became looser. He had to remind her, gently and certainly, of the rules set for each time they met. She was younger, now- her diary was barely even dented. It was still held in the pristine condition of the unused. Her wild blond curls were pinned out of her face, her soft skin exposed in short clothing from the summer heat. He watched her quietly before flickering his eyes back to Wren.

She was climbing out of the shallows of the lake, soaked to the bone and grinning delightedly. She held something in her cupped palms, water dripping from between her fingers. "Look," she insisted, leaning up on her toes, holding her hands up to him. Her hands moved and he could see a small fish flopping helplessly in the cup of her palms. He took in a breath and fit on an unnerved smile.

"Shouldn't you put him back?" He suggested. "He can't breath without water, kiddo."

"How do you breath water?" Wren asked, tilting her head, drawing the fish close to her chest. It flopped about, probably gasping for breath.

"Fish are different," the Doctor said, touching her shoulder and angling her back towards the water. "Put him back."

She brought the fish to her lips and for one harrowed second, he thought she was going to bite right into it, as feral and uncivilized as when he had brought her into the TARDIS. Instead (as his twin hearts hammered), she kissed the scales and dipped her palms back into the water. The fish wriggled and squirmed and then darted away into the murky depths of the lake. The Doctor wasn't even going to start on how unsanitary that was and how gross his daught- his... on how gross.. Wren was.

"Come on," she said excitedly after it was over and done with. She grabbed of his hand. She was taller, now. Her palm slid expertly into his own and his fingers tightened around her little palm. The Doctor glanced briefly at River and opened his mouth to- to what? To offer his not-so sincere apology at loving an excuse to flutter out of her company? She shook her head and waved him off and he followed Wren, being lead by the hand by a pretty younger woman- as it was always meant to be.

He chuckled softly to himself at that thought, allowing Wren to pull him along around the outer rim of the lake. "Where are we going?" He asked, good natured.

"I wanna explore," she said. When they were a bit away from the camp, she changed direction, marching directly for the trees.

The Doctor followed, brows raising. There was a strange catch to her voice. The hard sound of hope. It confused him. He followed nonetheless, sticking by Wren's side. She let go of his hand once they slipped into the shade of the trees; sunbeams burst through the top canopies and lit warm patches along the ground. Wren looked like a forest sprite, all twitchy and green as she was, her dress soaked at the hems, barefoot and wild. He rather liked the look of her in a natural environment, surrounded by shafts of sunlight.

"What are you looking for?" He asked when it became clear she was searching very hard for something. Her little hands grasped at the trunks of trees, peering in between over grown roots. Her hair swung around her shoulders, hiding her face. Her imagined a mischievous smile on her face.

Instead, when she looked up, there was devastation. "I'm looking for the note we left for Mama," she said. "Ain't that why we're here? Ain't this where you found me?"

He would worry about where she was picking up such crass Earth English later.

He saw it all in her little mind- how every upturned leaf was a reminder, how every cog in her head was something that could be linked back to what they didn't talk about, anymore. Not since he had found her crying silently in her bedroom. He saw the beginning of the trip through her eyes- an excited wake- up call, an out of the ordinary trip planned. A long drive, a long way from home- and the trees! How could she have possibly thought anything else? She had thought he was taking her back to her mother- that she had called and he wanted to surprise her. It was all clear in his mind, now- and he was exactly what he had been called several times before:

A great. Big. Outer space. Dunce.

He sucked in a sharp breath, his hand traveling to the back of his neck, brushing his fingers anxiously against his skin. Wren stared at him, standing still, hand pressed to a tree trunk. Her eyes searched his face and they stood their, facing one another. She was unblinking.

He knelt down in front of her so that they were eye-level. He touched one arm, gently, cradling her elbow in his palm. "Do you want me to say it?" He asked.

Wren sucked in a sharp, shaky breath. After several agonizing moments, she nodded.

"Alright," the Doctor whispered. Fast, he thought. Like a Band-Aid. "Your mother is-"

"Okay," Wren said quickly, holding her hands up to stop him. Her breath caught in her back of her throat. Slowly, she nodded her head. "Okay."

His eyes searched her face, ping-ponging back and forth. Her lips twisted slightly, as if chewing on a thought. Then, like a gift from every deity in very religion, she rocked forward and wrapped her arms around his neck tightly, squeezing him in desperate hug.

Desperate for them both.

* * *

><p>"Hey there, Daddio."<p>

River's voice trilled behind him and he glanced over his shoulder. She stood a bit further back from the fire, illuminated orange. He hunkered on the log that they had dragged over earlier in the evening. The small fire was crackling and popping, having died down from the earlier marshmallow roasting. Wren was tucked safely away in the tent, sleeping away the events of the evening. After his revealing her mother's death, Wren had seemed to take her time to mourn, sitting down by the river in the sunlight until twilight came and she was forced back into adult supervision. She'd said very little all evening and he hoped the vacation wasn't ruined because of it. He could only hope that she allowed herself to feel a little more, tomorrow.

River came to sit beside him on the log. The warmth of the day had seeped away; she sat with a small blanket tucked around her shoulders. The light of the fire flickered their shapes and manipulated their shadows. They sat in companionable silence. Her shoulder pressed firmly to his. There was no fear about her. No anxiety, no wonder. She knew, somehow, what she was to him, even while he was still struggling to wrap his head around the concept. There was an air of confidence that leaked out of her- unashamedly and unreservedly.

"I told her," he said, stretching his arms out in front of him. "About her mother."

River nodded softly. "I figured something happened."

"I'm too old for this," he grumbled, hunching his shoulders and clasping his hands together between his knees.

River laughed and shook her head. Her wild curls danced around her cheeks. There would have been something rather metaphorical about her untamed hair and her untamed spirit, if it weren't such a cliche. The Doctor smirked and shook his own head, drawing one hand to rub across his face. "I am," he insisted. "I'm old and thick."

Their silence stretched. They had little to say to one another- little that they could say, truly say. They were bound by their time-lines and what they could and couldn't know. He wondered if it would be better to simply take her with him in the TARDIS- to end their uncertainty. To discover her. He would like that, he thought- he would like to know her. He didn't dislike her has he had thought he would, back when. Though, younger now, she'd lost some of her fight. Some of her zeal. Or at least, she had yet to grow into herself.

He would rather like to watch that happen.

But when he opened his mouth to suggest she come with him- him, and Wren -the words wouldn't form. They caught in his throat and he snapped his mouth shut.

"What is it?" River asked, voice quiet.

"Nothing," he replied, filing his thoughts away along with his heart.


End file.
